John Chandler was born in Massachusetts in 1836. By 1860,
he was working as a whaleman and, with his brother George (a
housepainter), was boarding in the house of Nathan Dunham, a
seaman. During the 1860s, Chandler became a ship's captain,
undertaking voyages to Barbados and St. Vincent in 1867 and
1868. Sometime in the 1860s or 1870s he married a woman named
Ruth and they moved to Orrington, Maine. Then, in 1874, John
and Ruth Chandler executed an agreement (copied into the
account book near the back) to take care of Nathaniel and
Nancy Rider of Bucksport, Maine, in return for the deeding of
land in Bucksport to the Chandlers. Captain Chandler settled
into agricultural life in Bucksport for the next forty
years.